#ILookLikeAnEngineer: How women are using social media to bust stereotypes and redirect the STEM conversation about gender

When Internet commenters questioned an engineer's legitimacy based on her looks, Twitter amplified a broader conversation on women, STEM, and stereotypes.


"I've been to war, I've had babies, and I'm a junior freelance web developer #ILookLikeAnEngineer."

Krystyna Ewing hit the "tweet button" on this message at 7:12 p.m., August 3, and joined what's become a deluge of more that 32,000 tweets with that same hashtag. Scroll through #ILookLikeAnEngineer on Twitter, and you'll find selfies from engineers all over the world blurbing who they are, what they do, and testifying that applying narrow definitions of who is or should be an engineer is not only ridiculous, but impossible.

The reason for this outpouring is simple: The Internet had another dumb moment.

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